The Kinsky family at the time of the Nazi occupation. The fate of an aristocratic family in the light of ego-documents
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to use until-now much forgotten personal sources in the Kinsky Family Archive in Kostelec nad Orlicí to reconstruct a picture of the everyday life of an aristocratic residence in Czechoslovakia, or more precisely the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and to document the social bonds and customs of this unique social group. The Kostelec Kinsky family came under the microscope of the Nazi administration mainly as a result of its active involvement in the "aristocratic declarations", in particular the very first one under President E.
Beneš in September 1938, delivered by František Kinsky himself. This move complicated the life of the counts of Kostelec in the protectorate with compelled administration and the sentence of several years in prison handed down to the the 65-years-old František Kinsky.
In light of their clearly defined stance on the Czech, or rather Czechoslovak, state, it will come as no surprise that the Kinsky family of Kostelec were also involved in liberation operations in May 1945. The author considers on integral part of the research benefit for the history of mentalities to be a picture of how the Kostelec Kinskys experienced these significant historical and family milestones at the time of the Nazi occupation, which if considered at all until now, then only according to sources of an institutional nature.